


Past/Present

by mysteryinc



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: F/F, and i don't mention gideon's sword at all so that means this is a critical fail, but here I go, i've only just finished the 1st book, posting anyway, some domestic fluff-ish stuff in these trying times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28401849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysteryinc/pseuds/mysteryinc
Summary: Written in the hours after the pool scene, but before opening the door via "cheating" with Pal and Cam. Gideon struggles with what to do for Harrow's birthday, which is dumb because it isn't even Harrow's birthday.
Relationships: Gideon Nav & Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Past/Present

Gideon stared at the pile of red flimsy topped with a shining red bow like a single sad cherry on a wilted cake at a birthday no one had bothered turning up to. In this case, the analogy couldn’t be more apt if the King Undying had ordered it so himself.

The terribly gaudy, terribly transparent flimsy was terribly wrapping a birthday gift for Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Gideon had never wrapped a gift in her life, unless stuffing a moldy burlap sack with manure to hide in Harrow’s throne-pew counted. Gideon had been pleased that the dank, dark halls of Drearburh really were black enough that the bone princess had actually sat on the mud pie and smeared it across her bony ass. She’d been less pleased when she’d realized it was so dark that there wasn’t an audience for her prank, though knowing how dead the sense of humor typical Ninth nuns possessed was, it probably saved her a punishing penitence. Instead, she’d had the unique joy of listening to Harrow lead the congregation in prayers as if there wasn’t a giant shit stain skidmarking her perfect black robes, and a secondary unique joy of watching Harrow double-check her pew for the next month before sitting, which actually made the whole church thing a little more appealing.

Her eyes turned back to the badly wrapped present. Flimsy wasn’t really made for this kind of thing the way hole-riddled burlap was made for shit, and this particular flimsy was worse, given the fact it was almost completely see-through, blurred somewhat by the tint of blood red. The bucket of brown glue Teacher had provided was now all dripping from the various seams of one flimsy piece haphazardly slapped across another. The paste smelled like skeleton’s ass, and it sort of made the whole gift look like it was vomiting up bile between the shitty excuse for paper. Gideon didn’t care enough about the outer looks to smear the streaks across the flimsy and pretend it was paint, but she did care  _ just _ enough to recognize it for what it was: pathetic.

She chewed the inside of her lower lip. Perhaps it’d be kinder to throw the whole thing away, or burn it, and never  _ ever _ mention the thought of giving Harrow a gift had even crossed her mind. Giving Harrow a gift was a surefire way to end up pinned in some bone web, or given blood poisoning, or with the gift shoved down her pharynx and deep into her esophagus by a skeleton. The paranoia the heir to the Ninth possessed was, after all, the prized result of both generations of creepy, ritual breeding, and more than a sprinkle of superstitious, ritual upbringing. Whatever the souls of the dead had poured into the conception-- _ gross _ , imagining the Reverend Father and Reverend Mother  _ conceiving _ was  _ gross _ \--of Harrowhark, they’d definitely not left out the paranoia. Which was reason number probably 82 of why giving Harrow a gift was a  _ BAD IDEA _ .

Every time Gideon allowed herself to think about it, she felt her breakfast rebelling at the point of digestion.

But it almost seemed more stupid now, after she’d gone to all this trouble anyway, not to do it. Her brain had twisted itself into knots, and now she felt confused as a nun in a brothel. Gideon usually resented when Harrow declared with blistering indifference that she was an illiterate dunce, but she felt well and truly stupid the way she was overthinking this. The Gideon-from-10-hours-ago would’ve never given Harrow a gift, but if she had for some reason decided upon it, she  _ never _ would’ve second-guessed herself--mostly because the Gideon-from-10-hours-ago wanted nothing more than for Harrowhark Nonagesimus to slowly and painfully disintegrate into fine ash one molecular atom at a time, then get blown away over the ocean and drown. Whatever accusations or criticisms poured from Harrow’s barbed tongue to choke Gideon on wouldn’t touch the Gideon-from-10-hours-ago.

Gideon sighed and her lip crumpled on a frown. She still felt the unfamiliar warmth of sharing an intimate understanding with Harrow burning in her gut, and a calmness suddenly took hold of all her senses, washing over her like the buzz of a good wine. She remembered last night, after the pool, Harrow and her barely standing to be apart long enough to strip from their soaked black robes in separate rooms. But she’d used that time in private to get used to the idea that she was actually kind of okay with Harrow existing, and that maybe she even kind of didn’t totally hate her as much as she’d thought she had. Her brain had accepted that fact as easily as she did cold piles of grey, mucus-thick gruel, and it flipped her stomach twice as fast.

The ensuing examination of Harrow’s motive for blowing up a shuttle helped ease the fact of friendship into a more comfortable position in her mind. They’d spent so many long years misunderstanding the other one that it was more like setting the fractured bone of a once-abandoned soldier when Gideon did accept that she wanted to serve Harrow. The world was tilted not out of whack, but back to a natural alignment the Gideon-from-10-hours-ago could never have conjured in her wildest nightmares.

Oh, yeah. Gideon was back on the horse. She was doing this to make Harrowhark happy, and if that damn well meant Harrow laughed at Gideon for trying instead of actually enjoying the shitty gift itself, then she could live with that (as long as Harrow didn’t kill her outright, which was always a distinctive possibility with her).

Anyway, Gideon didn’t imagine Harrow really would like the comic book, given she’d always preferred to squirrel away dark and sometimes forbidden necromantic texts and medical encyclopedias to the hot magazines and fantastical comics Gideon lost herself in most nights. But maybe she could get Harrow to have a little fun before her childhood ended on the portentous knock of her 18th birthday and she would officially be an adult in the eyes of the law. Harrow, of course, was years ahead of the law, but it was only now that Gideon could conjure the appropriate amount of sympathy for her. She’d never had a real childhood, and that was just plain sad.

She unceremoniously patted the crinkly red bow atop the flimsy gift, which sprung back up much the same way she imagined Naberius Tern’s crest of gelatin hair would if she ever had the misfortune to pat it (maybe with the tip of her blade would make it bearable).

_ Here goes nothing _ .

To Gideon’s horror, Harrow didn’t react when presented with the gift. Not at first, anyway, but at first felt like a very dismally long time. Gideon’s cheeks were painted at least, hiding the expressions that betrayed that she cared an inch about what Harrow thought.

Harrow tilted her head in a peculiarly angular fashion, then reached out with one long, bone-gauntlet hand to accept the packet of flimsy. With her other bone-gauntlet hand, she pressed two fingers down on the bow, and watched as it bounced like gelatin under her fingers. This, for some reason, Gideon found immensely funny, and it was only later she realized it was because not five minutes prior, she’d done the same thing.

“Griddle, do I want to know why you’re offering me this wet stack of string and flimsy?” Harrow said, eyeing it with suspicion she was struggling nobly to keep out of her extremities and off her vocal cords.

“It’s a present, dumbass,” Gideon said with a roll of golden eyes. She couldn’t believe earlier she was nervous about giving this idiot a present. She must’ve hit her head, or stayed too long underwater. Or maybe she’d just gone completely insane and hadn’t quite realized it yet. “You take the flimsy off.”

Harrow’s black eyebrow arched a centimeter as she regarded the wet packet. “I can see through it,” she replied after a moment. “Why would you wrap a present with translucent paper?”

“There’s not exactly an abundance of gift shops on the island, my withered princess of bone and flesh.” Harrow was already halfway to having her eyes rolling out of her head as she began untying the string and pulling apart postcard-sized flimsy from the glue muck. “I beg your reverent forgiveness, oh shadow queen.”

“Shut up, you ass.” The insult was half-baked, which was a good sign that Harrow was maybe actually interested in what secrets lay beneath the clouded flimsy. She’d discarded about a third of the sticky, translucent scraps, her face painted into the picture of confusion as she rained a cursory glance across the now-visible title. “ _ The Three Cavaliers _ ,” she read it out loud, then proffered Gideon a chance to explain herself with a single black-eyed look.

Gideon shrugged. “Wasn’t exactly starving for choice, and it was either that, or an outdated copy of a Cohort-soldier-of-the-month calendar that was uh, illuminating for me as a tween. And I wanted to keep that.”

Harrow’s lips puckered and her thick lashes returned her eyes to the cover. She’d now successfully peeled the flimsy from the front of the comic, though a few slimy tracks of glue had ruined the pictures. “Your taste in literature is savage,” Harrow remarked. Her thumb ghosted the top right corner of the comic. “This says number one. Is it a series?”

Gideon couldn’t contain a small, triumphant smile. “Yep,” she popped the ‘p’. “I’ve got all five with me, so all you’ve gotta do is ask.”

Harrow was unresponsive to this request, but Gideon was comforted by the care with which she removed the globs of glue stains from the cover, and while she never caught Harrow reading the damn thing, it sat on her desk beside her map book, and every once in awhile, she’d give it a longing look.

That had to be enough for Gideon.

It was.


End file.
